Bruno breaks leg

Bruno was on switching duty that evening. The rain was pouring down, and the ground was slippery. Worse still were the rails. The puffing of the steam locomotive--Number Four--introduced a sense of caution in Bruno's mind. He saw the engine trot down the line along a raised embankment. The embankment shifted, and the rails noticeably bent accordingly. Bruno watched the lone engine cross the hill, and thought he noticed a twinge of emergency in the driver's actions. Indeed, Bruno noticed the engine slow a trifle until it was in the safe area, and it pulled up to the station platform.

"Skeleton crew tonight, Bruno?" Asked the driver from the little engine's cab.

"Aye, Jim. Everyone else has gone home before the storm," said Bruno.

"Well we still have work to do before we can go, haven't we?" Said Jim.

"Are you sure we can't just do the shunting tomorrow? You saw the embankme--"

"Yes, I know. It's not ideal. But we've got to do it."

"All right then. Let's fetch you those trucks," said Bruno with an exasperated sigh.

Bruno stood on the engine's footplate, ready to flip switches on the narrow gauge tracks. The fireman shoveled coal into the firebox, and the driver pulled the lever to set the engine running back across the embankment to the yard. Bruno was a large man, and more than made the the little engine's cabin feel cramped. As such, he had to stand on the front of the engine. This was not particularly safe, but neither was any job he was ever offered.

As the engine crossed the embankment, the climb up the hill began. The engine, even alone and without anything pulled behind it, struggled up the slope. Finally it crested the grade and trotted into the yard. The orders were to collect the empty open trucks and bring them back to the station to be loaded in the morning with coal. After getting off and back on the locomotive several times to switch points, couple up wagons and trucks, and check the wheel-slip, the train was ready to get back to the station. Bruno had gone early to switch the points on the other side of the embankment. Slowly and cautiously, Jim brought the regulator open, and the train trundled down the slope.

But there was a problem. The sandbox was all out. Nothing to add friction to the slippery rails. And slip the train did. Uncontrollably accelerating as it chuffed down the hill, it was travelling too fast for the wet embankment.
A good few cubic feet of gravel and dirt fell off of the embankment, and the rails fell along with it.
Unable to stop the engine, the driver and fireman jumped from the cab and onto the ground. The driver rolled down the embankment and the fireman onto the muddy grass. Bruno had a choice. He could let the train keep going out of control into the station, damaging it, or he could switch it into a siding where it would crash safely. Being blessed with even a shred of competence, Bruno chose the latter.

The train was now tilted nearly 10 degrees to the side, the wheels of one side of the engine lifted off the tracks. Bruno ran to the switch points. The train, now barreling towards him, refused to stay on the tracks. Tilted one way and then back again, the train, fell sideways. Right onto Bruno.

Bruno's legs were broken. It was a medical miracle that they need not be amputated, but they were paralyzed nonetheless.